


we held the world, we were turning it

by tidesong



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Canon Divergence, Character Study, Established Relationship, F/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Memory Loss, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Book 2: Crooked Kingdom, Relationship Study, Slow Build, Temporary Amnesia, Yet another fix it fic, ck spoilers, rediscovering each other basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:09:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27155713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tidesong/pseuds/tidesong
Summary: She tells him that they are the type of people poets wrote tragedies about.—Nina brings Matthias back to life. Too bad he doesn't remember.
Relationships: Matthias Helvar & Nina Zenik, Matthias Helvar/Nina Zenik
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	we held the world, we were turning it

**Author's Note:**

> title is a line taken from permanent by kygo

**v**.

Jesper tells her that she’s been asleep for a week. 

When she hears that statement, it takes Nina more than a full minute to process it. She’d wanted to laugh at first, because she couldn’t remember a time where she’d gone longer than five days without eating waffles. But maybe it was the way he’d said them, all sad and solemn and shadowed with an emotion she couldn’t place—guilt, perhaps—does she swallow it down. She makes the mistake of trying to get up from the couch she’d woken up on and is immediately overwhelmed by the feeling of vertigo.

Nina blinks and rubs her eyes, trying to clear the fatigue that clouds her mind. Her mouth feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton and she barely manages to thank Inej when her friend passes her a glass of water. She drinks it gratefully as she tries to collect her thoughts. Her eyes flit around the room, taking in her surroundings. She was definitely not back at the Slat, for one. The white and gold scalloped wallpaper reeked of obstinate wealth and the ornate paisley print couch spoke of someone who had more money than taste. Nina puts two and two together and realizes that Kaz must’ve pulled everything off. The notable absence of Kuwei confirms this. But what that doesn’t answer is how she’d ended up knocked out for a week and not remembering any of it.

“You’re telling me I went a week without waffles.” She inwardly winces at how hoarse her voice sounds. The joke falls flat when she looks at everyone else across the room, meeting each one of their eyes. She ends up staring at Kaz for a beat longer than she has to, but he remains impassive. Her gaze trails to Inej, but her friend only gives the slightest shake of her head. Wylan looks like he’s just eaten something sour, and Matthias—

 _Matthias_.

The gunshot, the blood, the way she’d screamed for him to _come back to me, stay with me, please—_ It comes rushing back to her all at once.

The glass of water spills to the floor, forgotten. 

Matthias is sitting in the shadowed corner of the room where the lamplight couldn’t quite reach. He’s looking at her with an unfamiliar kind of intensity, ice blue eyes pinning her in place. Nina can’t find it in herself to look away even as panic begins to grow in her chest. It feels wrong to be on the other end of that stare. It makes her heart heavy. _Saints_ , Nina thinks. _He must hate me, I took him away from Djel, I was so selfish_ —

Kaz ignores her obvious discomfort and leans forward in his chair, hands clasped around the head of his cane. Jesper shifts in his seat and the tiny movement is enough for her to snap out of it.

“And therein lies the problem, Nina dear,” Kaz drawls, words weighed down with a knowledge she isn’t ready to hear yet. “You brought him back to life, but he doesn’t remember a single thing.”

Nina wonders if she’d woken up in the wrong universe. Or maybe her sugar consumption had finally caught up over the years and her brain had rotted away in her sleep. 

“We spent the past week explaining things. His time in Hellgate, the Ice Court, and up until now. But I can imagine there are gaps in his memories from the time before...” He lets the sentence hang in the air. Nina hears what’s unspoken all the same: _The time before you. The time after you. And everything in-between_.

Nina wants Kaz to stop talking. Wants him to stop because some part of her thinks that if he would just shut up, whatever he’s been saying wouldn’t be true, and then she’d wake up for real this time and it would just be a bad dream. 

The water she’d gulped down earlier threatens to make a reappearance. The world spins, taking the rest of her sanity along with it. 

“I need air,” is what she ends up saying. It’s a miracle that she doesn’t trip as she makes her way out of the parlor; her legs are shaking so badly that she wants nothing more than to curl up into a ball and cry.

Nina ignores the way she can feel the weight of everyone’s stare following her out. 

**vi**.

It’s Inej who finds her in the gardens, hunkered down next to a grove of citrus trees. She’d aimlessly wandered around the hallways of the Van Eck mansion before she’d decided to open the first door that she saw. It had been pure luck that it happened to lead into a courtyard that contained more greenery than the whole of Ketterdam combined. 

“You should eat.” Nina hears Inej before she sees her. Her friend squats down next to her and pushes a plate with potato dumplings towards her. “Leftovers from dinner. We didn’t know when you would wake up, so we didn’t have any waffles. Or cake,” Inej says apologetically. 

Nina spears a dumpling with a fork. It’s still warm. “Thank you,” she says softly. Her mind might’ve had a hard time processing that she’s been out for a week, but her body didn’t. She’d entertained the thought of picking some oranges to eat before Inej showed up. And as if she could somehow hear her thoughts, Inej scales the closest tree to them and begins to pick some fruit. 

Nina finishes eating just as Inej climbs back down with a couple of oranges. She settles back down besides her and begins to peel the fruit. 

“What really happened?” If there’s anyone who can spare her honesty, it’s Inej. 

“We both saw him die,” Inej says. She keeps her eyes on the orange, hands never faltering. “And you fainted right after you brought him back to life. It was the strangest thing. He didn’t know who he was or where he was. We couldn’t explain everything to him out in the streets, so we had to drag both of you back to the Slat to lay low for a while. It was hard convincing him that we weren’t enemies, at first.” She pauses, a wry smile on her face. “I can imagine that we didn’t look quite trustworthy.”

“What about now?” Nina hates how small her voice sounds. _Where do I stand?_ “Where does he stand now?”

Inej finishes peeling the orange and hands it to her before starting on her own. “It took a while, but what Kaz said is true. We took turns telling him. Wylan drew pictures to illustrate, to help jog his memory. He knows who we are, what we’ve done…” Inej trails off. The pause is heavier than it should be. “But I guess he still doesn’t know a lot about himself. Or you,” she finishes softly, meeting Nina’s eyes.

The orange is sweet and juice dribbles down her chin before she can wipe it off. A part of her is already aware of that horrible truth. But another part of her had been holding on to the hope that maybe all isn’t lost. Because that’s what she’s been so scared of, all this time: She doesn’t know how to talk to him like he doesn’t know her, doesn’t know how to love him if he doesn’t. 

Nina licks her lips. The juice dries tart and she can still taste it long after she swallows. “I don’t know what to do, Inej.” She’d had plans for both of them, once. _Promise me, Nina. Find people worth saving_. 

Her friend hums noncommittally as she finishes the orange. “Maybe you don’t have to do anything.”

Nina closes her eyes and inhales, trying to fill that empty space inside her with air. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Inej’s next words are so soft she has to strain to hear them. “The heart is an arrow.”

A brush on her cheek, feather-light. “He watched over you,” Inej says. “Every night.”

Nina doesn’t hear Inej leave but feels the silence all the same. 

**vii**.

She spends more time taking a bath than she needs to. Nina can’t help herself; hot baths were a luxury when she was employed at the House of the White Rose and she indulges in a long soak, sampling expensive bath soaps and oils, courtesy of the Van Eck fortune. Nina only rinses off when her nose could not handle any more different scents.

The room Wylan had let her stay in was one of the guest bedrooms; it was fancier than anything Nina had stayed in, short of the Little Palace. It had a four-poster bed, a balcony that overlooked the gardens, and an ensuite bathroom that Nina had spent the last hour in. The robe that she finds hanging behind the door is a few inches too short for her, barely reaching the top of her knees. 

Nina is busy opening random drawers and examining the rest of the room when a knock interrupts her. She automatically opens the door, not thinking about who it could be. So really, she only has herself to blame when it’s Matthias. Matthias, who is determinedly keeping his eyes on her face even as she is standing before him in an indecently short robe. Matthias, who is holding a plate full of waffles and another cup full of chocolate and syrup. 

“I thought you might be hungry.” His smile is bright and familiar and breaks her heart all the same. “Heard you liked waffles.”

 _Yes_ , she thinks. _I love them. And I love you too_. A memory, resurfacing like an echo from another lifetime: _More than waffles_. 

Nina takes the plate from him and smiles, waving him into her room. She doesn’t need to look back to know that he’s trailing behind her, albeit a little unsure of himself. She could fix that. 

She places the tray on the nightstand and sits at the edge of the bed, motioning for Matthias to sit on the settee across from her. 

The waffles smell like heaven and maybe she’s eating a little more suggestively than usual when she feels his eyes on her. She’s more than aware of how his eyes land on her mouth, then shifting away ever so slightly. Nina pours what might be deemed as an obscene amount of syrup and chews slowly, pretending to not notice how his gaze lingers on her fingers and face. 

“You can sit closer; I won’t bite,” she teases. “If you ask nicely,” she adds as an afterthought when he scoots infinitesimally closer. 

“I’ve forgotten a lot of things, but not my senses,” he replies.

“No, not yet,” she says without missing a beat. Nina eats her last waffle in the period of silence that follows when Matthias flushes and looks away, looking like he’s putting a lot of effort into what he’s about to say next.

“They said that I hated you,” he begins conversationally. There are less than three feet between them but somehow he still sounds like an ocean away. _He’d watched over you. Every night_. All questions, no answers. _The time before you. The time after you. And everything in-between_. “What changed?”

What a loaded question. Perhaps he’d been spending too much time with the others in her absence. She wants to say, _everything_. _We were shipwrecks, once. But we brought each other back to shore_.

She licks the syrup off her fingers, catches his gaze with hers—she smiles and sets the now empty plate back on the nightstand, patting the empty space next to her on the bed. He looks at her as if she’d just propositioned him and she can barely hold back her smile. _So honorable, so very Fjerdan_. It’s moments like these that make it hard to believe that he’d forgotten the vast majority of his life. But no matter. She’d remembered enough for the both of them.

“You’re too far away,” she says. “Come a little closer.” 

He gives her the side-eye but pushes the chair until their knees are almost touching. She reaches out and grabs his hands without thinking. His hands are warm and familiar and he doesn’t flinch, letting her trace his knuckles. She thinks of the time in Hellgate; how he’d gotten his hands bloody because of her. She laces her fingers with his for a moment before letting go, raising her eyes to his. 

“Let’s make a deal. I’ll tell you a story every day about whatever you want to know. About yourself, about me, or the rest of the gang. Anything you’re curious about, really. And in return, you can keep bringing me waffles. However, I also accept sweets and biscuits.”

She’s rewarded with a laugh and oh, how she’s missed his laugh. It lifts some of the weight off her shoulders and she’s glad that some things remain unchanged. In response, he reaches out his right hand for her to shake and she takes it, grasping and squeezing once. She doesn’t let go and Nina considers it progress when he allows himself to be pulled onto the bed next to her. 

She scoots until her back is against the headboard and she pulls a pillow to her chest. Suddenly she doesn’t feel too tired. 

“I’ll tell you a story tonight since you brought me waffles,” she says. “What do you want to know?”

He looks at her, ice blue against green. “Who I am,” he begins. A pause. “Or who I was. In the beginning, at the start of it all.” _Before you_. He doesn’t say this, but she hears it all the same.

Nina hums and thinks of a frozen landscape perpetually stuck in the throes of winter. She thinks about the wolves that ran on four feet and the ones that walked on two. She thinks of the boys who would eventually become hunters with ice in their veins and hate in their hearts. 

“Alright,” she says. “Let me tell you all about a winter wonderland.”

Nina is not a very good storyteller. She jumps between time periods and backtracks when she realizes that she’d forgotten to mention important details. Somewhere along the way she realizes she's gone completely off topic when she starts reciting some old Ravkan fairy tales. She is suddenly glad that Kaz and the others had explained current events to him, or else he would’ve ended up more confused.

But what she does manage to tell—with a certain kind of clarity she wasn’t previously aware of—is the tale of two kingdoms and about the war that didn’t determine who was right but rather who remained. And in the end, she tells him about the night they met. She tells him about the hunters and the hunted and how sometimes they were one and the same.

She tells him, _maybe we weren’t just drüsje and drüskelle, witch or witch hunter_. 

_“_ We chose,” she says. “And maybe that’s who we are, who _you_ are, even now: people who continue to choose.”

**viii**.

Nina dreams. 

She is in the place of starless night where time stood still, existing everywhere and nowhere at once, a world between worlds. 

_Why are you so sad?_ There is a laugh next to her ear; it’s as hollow as it sounds. _I kept my end of our bargain_.

There are lessons in certain stories that she should’ve paid more attention to. They said, _you cannot cheat death_. Nina thinks that she could’ve if she’d used her words wisely.

“I’ll see you in the next life,” is what she ends up saying as she continues walking on. They were far from finished and this wouldn’t be her last time here, but she had other things to do than linger around. 

She was Nina Zenik, and she had to return to the realm of the living.

**ix**.

She takes Matthias to the rooftops of the Slat the next day. The sun is a low ball of fire on the horizon when she takes him by the hand and leads him around Ketterdam, avoiding the main streets.

She’d been so engrossed with telling Matthias about Fjerda the night before to notice the sky brightening from cobalt to rose. They’d slept through breakfast and a little bit through lunch and Jesper had given them little suggestive looks all day long. She’d refused to be cowed and returned his looks with a few of her own wherever Wylan walked into a room.

It was Inej who’d showed her the little alcove on the roof some months ago. It was where she would meet her friend once a week if they both weren’t busy with their jobs or any other business. When Inej had first suggested meeting on the roof because neither their rooms offered any real privacy, she’d balked. 

“It’s easy for you,” she’d complained. “You’re the Wraith. You can climb anywhere. I’d like to stay on the ground, close to where my desserts are.” 

Inej had laughed, dark eyes twinkling. “The most you’ll have to climb are stairs. I promise.”

In the end, Inej hadn’t lied—except for the fact that the back staircase looked overdue for some repairs. There were some instances where she’d had to hoist herself up.

But still, she’d felt at peace once they reached the roof. The alcove was partially hidden from the street but offered a glorious view of Fifth Harbor. And that same feeling was why she’d kept coming back with Inej week after week, talking and laughing about everything under the sun. It was her safe place with one of her dearest friends. 

And that is what she ends up telling Matthias when they’re sitting together in that tiny space, legs tucked close to their chests. He shifts so he can pull something out of his jacket pocket and Nina reflexively presses closer to him, enjoying his warmth. The only indication that he gives to her attempt to snuggle against him is one raised brow as he hands her what he’s pulled out.

The chocolate bar is slightly warm but it’s her favorite—milk and hazelnuts—and she breaks a piece off, letting it melt on her tongue before turning her face to the sun, squinting into the horizon.

The sunset bleeds red and orange across the harbor and Nina points towards a tiny black blot in the horizon she’s only looked at a couple hundred times. There were days where she’d stared at Hellgate until the sight was burned into her eyelids and she could still see the sunset when she closed her eyes. 

Looking at it was an ache, like a wound that had never closed. 

Matthias follows her line of sight dutifully.

“That’s Hellgate,” she says. “That’s where Kaz said you were for a year before we broke you out.”

He’d told her that he already knew the story from various sources. But still, Nina thinks he should hear her side of the story before the guilt ate her up from the inside. He’d forgiven her in another life. Maybe he will forgive her in this one. 

“If there had been another alternative, I would’ve done anything else,” she says. “But there wasn’t, and I made the choice for you. I traded one death for another. If I’d let you go, you could’ve died on your own terms. Maybe that would’ve been better knowing that I didn’t betray you like I did.” Nina looks away. It’s not easier to say it the second time around.

He reaches out and touches her arm; she lets him take it in his lap. She’ll take whatever he wants to give her. “But you came back for me.”

She swallows the familiar taste of guilt. “I couldn’t let you die in there.” It had been her mistake in the first place, after all. “I needed to try and make up for what I did to you. I was willing to do whatever it took.” And she did. She’d tried so hard the past year, searching for something that had always seemed to be out of reach. 

“And then you came back for me a second time.” He is tracing the fingers of her hand now, brushing lightly over her knuckles. 

“I didn’t get you back just to lose you all over again.” She says this with as much conviction as she can muster. She didn’t wait a year to have him slip away in what felt like seconds. 

Nina is brought back out of her thoughts when Matthias picks up her hand and laces his fingers through hers like he’s done it a million times before. 

“Stop looking. You’ve already earned it.”

There are two pieces left of the chocolate bar.

Nina takes one and gives him the other.

**iii**.

He is stumbling towards her in that crooked alley, steps ungainly and stilted. She should’ve noticed that there was something wrong when he reaches for her but she’s still high off the feeling of being one step closer to her dreams to really notice. 

He kisses her with a wild kind of desperation, and that’s when she knows. 

She feels the tidal wave of panic when her hands grow wet with his blood right when she kisses him back. The coppery scent of blood fills her nostrils and she feels the fear that begins to take root in her bones. She doesn’t need her powers to tell that his life was slipping away, that _he_ was slipping away with every second that passes. 

Somewhere in the chaos, she screams for Inej and her friend is at her side in an instant. Inej says something she can’t quite hear as the rest of Ketterdam becomes a blur in time and space.

She feels a million miles away in those last moments as he begs her to have mercy on his people, making her promise that _she would find a Fjerdan worth saving_. That phrase is enough to snap her back into focus, enough for her to shake off the cold terror that clings to her like a second skin. She wants to scream at him, _you’re a Fjerdan worth saving_. She thinks of their future, all the things she’d wanted to do in Ravka with him. _You’re worth saving_. 

Nina has never considered herself a possessive person. Life as a soldier didn’t give her the chance to have any real possessions, anything to really call hers. So maybe she isn’t all that surprised when she feels fiery determination creeping up in that cold dead place she’d tried hard to forget about. 

Matthias was dying. She would bring him back, one way or another. _I will bring you back to shore_. His pulse flutters weakly underneath her touch as if he could somehow sense her thoughts.

“Nina, you are my home.” His voice is barely above a whisper; she catches it and commits it to memory. 

She grits her teeth and closes her eyes. “Then stay with me.”

Nina feels time slow down the moment she places her hand over his heart and focuses on the light that was Matthias. She closes her eyes and concentrates with every fiber of her being, willing herself to chase after him in the dark. 

The first thing she notices is the cold. It was different from the way her power felt; this cold was angry and hungry and unforgiving. Dimly, Nina is aware that she was in a place she was not supposed to be. Still, she stumbles on in the dark, unafraid. She’d mastered death once. She could do it again. As she runs on, she hears wolves howling in the dark over the roar of a storm. “Matthias,” she screams into the void. _Matthias_ , _Matthias_ , _Matthias_. The sound is carried away by the wind.

Her steps become sluggish after a time, but she refuses to slow down. She was close; she could feel him just ahead. If she just reached out, she could almost—

—something slams into her, sending her stumbling back. Pain explodes across her head, sending stars across her vision. She struggles to get up, but her limbs feel like lead. 

_You don’t belong here_. A voice, low and very, very ancient. Spoken right at her ear but sounded from everywhere. 

She wobbles to her feet. Her head still spun, and it was hard to think. “I want him back.”

 _He is not yours to keep_. It’s a warning, one that she chooses to ignore. Nothing mattered anymore besides getting Matthias back.

Maybe she’s suicidal. Maybe she’s a desperate fool. Maybe she’s both because she summons every bit of strength she has to push past that wall of darkness. 

Nina would never forget the way it felt like being torn apart, like having her insides ripped open and scrambled a thousand times. There are voices in her head, buzzing like a swarm of angry bees. It’s nearly enough to bring her to her knees. Even so, she reaches out and grabs blindly at the space her heart tells her to. Her power thrums in her veins even as she feels resistance on the other side of the line. 

“I will get him back,” she grows into the dark. “One way or another.”

Her hand curls around something warm and tangible. 

She blinks, and she’s suddenly back in Ketterdam. The blood on her hands is dry and sticky. Her body aches, like if a carriage had run her over, reversed, and had done it again. Inej’s shaking her, mouthing words that fade into white noise because the word is still spinning and her vision has grown dark around the edges. She has to try her hardest to look down at Matthias.

Maybe her headache is playing tricks on her, but she feels the weak beat of his pulse beneath his shirt. She traces a finger on his cheek and prays for his eyes to open.

If he wakes, she does not remember when her head hits the ground.

**x**.

Matthias is the one that shows her the library. 

She’d long since given up on snooping around the Van Eck mansion after the third day. As curious as she was, it still felt foreign poking around someone else’s home; consequently, the only places she’d ever spent time in was her room and the gardens. She’d said as much to Wylan when he’d told her that she was more than welcome to use the kitchen to make waffles.

“Make yourself at home,” Wylan had said. 

“I don’t know what that’s like,” she’d blurted out before she could stop herself. 

He’d stopped in surprise and looked at her, showing more perceptiveness than Jesper ever gave him credit for. She’d waited for the questions but all she’d seen was quiet understanding on his face.

“It’s okay,” he’d said, half to himself. “We all have to start somewhere.” 

With that in mind, she’d relaxed and allowed Matthias to lead her up two floors to the library, situated in a second-floor corner of the mansion. There are two couches and a table next to a fireplace at the far wall; the rest of the space is filled with shelves and shelves of books. 

He brings her toffee today, and she takes one in her mouth before following him down the stacks of books. She lets her fingertips trail over some of the spines: _The Wealth of Nations. A Study of Kerch Economics. Kerch Markets: A History_. She thinks that Van Eck had missed his true calling as an economics professor at the university. 

Matthias leads her to the couches and there are already several books stacked on the table. She idly flips through one about Fjerda. She is greeted with drawings of Djerholm and the Ice Court. The book beneath it is titled _Wolves: Behavior & Ecology_. 

“I’ve been reading,” he admits. He runs a hand through blond locks and her eyes reflexively follow the motion. “Trying to fill in all the missing pieces. Thought I should start with home.”

She shifts the rest of the books across the table. _Djel: Wellspring of the North_. _From Ice: A Fjerdan History._

“We had a library in the Little Palace,” she says absentmindedly. “I spent a lot of time there. That's where I read all about Fjerda.”

She doesn’t notice that he has moved closer until he reaches for her hand. She’s simultaneously surprised and startled. 

“The Little Palace,” he says slowly. “Your home?”

Instinctively, she wants to say, _yes_. It was the truth, after all—she’d spent the last decade of her life there, training as a soldier. She’d known no other when she was growing up. She could think of no other place in Ravka that could be considered home the same way he could not forget about Fjerda.

“It was where I grew up,” she says. It is the truth she can afford to sell.

He squeezes her hand. His fingers are warm, solid. She hopes that he will never let go. “Nina,” he says. 

“I had a cat, once." She doesn’t know why she leads with this. “We weren’t allowed pets. But one day I found a lost kitten and there was no way I could leave it alone.”

She remembers that day clearly. She’d snuck out to her favorite sweet shop in Os Alta and had almost walked past an alley when a pitiful mewling had stopped her in her tracks. It had been a dirty and half half-starved thing; she’d taken it with her, wrapped in her scarf, back into her room.

“Black with green eyes, white paws. Like socks. It was supposed to be temporary. I didn’t name her at first. It was supposed to only be for a month, but then it became a year. It was hard to keep a cat in a tiny room, so I’d leave my window open. And she’d come back every night. Until one night, she didn’t.” Nina looks away, stares into the fire. “I called for her all night. The other Grisha thought I was going crazy looking for a pair of socks.”

“I didn’t have many friends. We were soldiers first. All we knew was how to fight. I don’t think there was ever room for anything else. But up until that point, it didn’t matter. I had something. Something that was happy to see me and warmed my feet in the winter.”

Nina doesn’t realize that she’s been tearing up until Matthias reaches over and brushes something wet off her cheek. He picks up the book of wolves and runs a finger over the cover. 

“Trassel,” he says haltingly, as if he’s double-checking himself. “He was my wolf.”

The _Isenulf_. She remembers Matthias’ words echoing back to her, a lifetime ago: _If a drüskelle is killed, the wolf is returned to the wild, but no pack will accept them. But what good is a wolf without a pack?_

“I wonder if he’s still out there.” She feels the light tremble of his hand around hers. “I wonder if he’s still waiting for me to come home.”

“He’s still yours,” she finds herself saying. Her voice is uncharacteristically quiet even in her own ears, a drop of sound in the ocean of a room. “Because you’re still here.”

**iv**.

Nina dreams. 

_He is not yours to keep_. A whisper, a ghost of a breath. It is near soundless in the way that made Nina doubt if she’d ever heard it at all, but the chills down her spine say otherwise. 

It should’ve frightened her, but Nina is done with being afraid. 

Nina snarls into the darkness, the sound of a predator against prey. “He is mine.”

 _I will not bargain with a beggar._ This time, a smile, all teeth. Cold like winter, brittle as bones. 

“No,” she says. “I am Nina Zenik, and you will make a deal with me.”

**ii**.

It takes three weeks for her to fall in love.

She’s well aware that it’s silly and stupid. What does she know about love? The only exposure she’s ever gotten was from Ravkan plays and romance novels—she staunchly does not count the Princess and Barbarian. She has a feeling that Matthias would be insulted to be equated to a Fjerdan prince who was civilized by a Ravkan princess. 

She blames the reluctant kind of camaraderie that blooms between them in the first week. She’s grown to like their banter and their little games. It’s far too easy to make him riled up and see the red flush creep across his cheeks whenever she decides to tease him. She is especially appreciative of the way his arms always find their way around her when she wakes in the mornings. There are fewer insults and veiled snubs by the second, and they have developed a grudging sense of respect for the other. Surviving in the wilderness was exponentially harder if you were alone, after all. 

But maybe being lulled into that sense of false security was when she should’ve known that something would go wrong eventually. 

They have their first big argument three weeks after the shipwreck when they’re setting up camp in a small cave in the mountains. It’s an unplanned stop; they’d spotted a small town at the base of the mountain but a sudden thunderstorm had forced them to find shelter. 

“I wonder how it all started,” Nina says as she’s rolling out their sleeping furs. Her gaze drifts to Matthias as he's warming up cold jerky over the fire. “The war between drüskelle and Grisha, Fjerda and Ravka.”

His head snaps up and she meets his gaze over the firelight. It casts flickering shadows over his face and blankets an expression she can’t quite decipher. “Are you really asking this? Drüskelle were formed to hunt Grisha. That’s how it all started. I thought that was obvious, Nina.”

She grinds her teeth in exasperation. _Oh, you big blond lump_. “Yes, but why? Why all of this hate? Where did it come from in the first place?” All her life, she’d been told that this kind of hatred had always existed between Fjerda and Ravka. Zoya had called her hopelessly naive and idealistic when she’d asked about the reason. _They dedicate their lives to murder us, Nina. Isn’t that a good enough reason to hate them back?_

Matthias does not reply, and she decides to press on. “You hate us because of what we are! But we’re still human—”

“No.” He cuts her off, voice heavy with a touch of finality that forces all the air right out of her lungs. “It’s unnatural. It’s against the laws of nature. You do things people aren’t meant to do. You shouldn’t be able to control the human body. If that isn’t witchcraft then what is?”

Nina drops the furs on the floor and stomps over until she’s right across the fire from him. If he wanted a fight, he might as well look into her eyes when they started a war. _Silly, foolish Nina._ Zoya’s voice, again. _Beware of the wolves in Fjerda. The ones that run on four legs and the ones who walk on two_.

“Don't pretend you’re any better,” she says. She’s close enough to see the flames reflected in the ice of his eyes when he looks at her.

“What do you mean?” 

“What do you do about the people who hurt others but aren't Grisha? In case you’ve been so blinded by your hatred, Grisha aren't the only ones out there murdering people!”

“Grisha killed my parents!” he screams at her; a rage-filled thing that shakes her bones. She half expects him to leap over the fire and fight her, making good on his promise of the drüskelle oath. 

“How would it feel if it was someone else?”

“I’d still hate them.” 

“Not what I asked. Would you still hate Grisha? Would you still be on this path?”

“Don't pretend you’re so peaceful," he hisses back at her. "If Grisha aren’t killers, then why are they so suited for war? You're a Heartrender. Why not a Healer? Why won't the Etherealki use their powers for good? Why are you so inclined for battle?” His words are so cold and they wash over her like a flood, leaving devastation in its wake. 

They are at an impasse. There is a war raging between the both of them, and she wonders who—or what—would emerge unscathed, unburnt by the flames. She breathes in and all she can smell is smoke.

“We choose, I suppose,” she says over the crackling of the fire. “The same way you choose. At the very end of the day, we’re going to be on opposite sides. You have your uniform, and I have mine.”

He doesn’t look at her when he splits half of the jerky with her, and she doesn’t look at him when they split the water that they’ve collected from the rain. The silence feels all wrong when they’re settling down in the pile of furs in the corner. He’s as close to her as ever but somehow they’ve never been farther apart.

She’s on the verge of drifting off when he speaks. 

“What are we, then?”

Nina doesn’t know. She wants to say, _people who could be better. People who could change_. But she doesn’t want another argument right before they go to sleep, so she lets out a little breath and turns around to face him. She can't see him in the dark but feels his gaze on her all the same. 

“We’re the type of people poets write tragedies about.”

She’d meant those words as a joke. But one week later, when she sells him out and when he is hauled away like an animal in chains, does she feel the full force of gravity crushing her down. 

Perhaps she’d been right. The old stories had been full of love and war and betrayal; she has enough of those in spades. He is gone and he has taken her heart along with him, leaving her with blank pages haunted with all the memories of his smile and the sound of his laughter.

And after, when she lands in Kerch waters and spends every sunrise to sundown with his name ringing in her ears, does she realize what she should’ve said to him that night. 

She should’ve said, _people worth saving_. 

**xi**.

Nina writes.

The motion almost feels foreign—her words are unevenly spaced, letters jumbled close together, or not at all. She doesn’t have Kaz’s uniform scrawl, nor Wylan’s orderly script. She couldn’t really remember a time where she’d ever had to write anything; couldn’t recall a time where she wasn’t using her hands for fighting. Holding a pen didn’t have the same feeling as curling her hands around her power; sweeping her pen across paper was a pale imitation of what she was used to doing in battle. 

After the first page, she feels more at ease. The spacing is more consistent, sentences smooth and uncluttered. If there’s one thing that she’s sure of, it’s that the body remembers. Her thoughts translate easily onto paper, taking like a duck into water. _Four million kurge. Buy a ship like Inej?? Must ask for recommendations. Sail to Ravka. Sail to Fjerda_. _Serve the Second Army again_. 

She taps the pen on her cheek. Maybe she’ll take Sturmhond up on his offer. She could save one empire, burn another down, build something new. 

She thinks of Matthias. Wonders about how she’ll tell him, wonders about what he’ll say. 

There is a knock on her door, and she senses Matthias before she even turns around. Nina stacks the papers on the desk before turning around in her chair.

He’s carrying a bowl in one hand and a bottle of brandy in the other; Nina’s brain is slow to catch up about what’s exactly in the bowl until he places them in front of her.

“ _Pomdrakon_?” Surprise colors her words. She doesn’t remember telling him about the recipe for dragonbowl; he’d been against eating things that were actively burning once upon a time.

“You said you wanted to eat _pomdrakon_ when you got back to Ravka,” he says matter-of-factly as if she was the one with memory problems now.

That was true. She’d wanted to eat it because it had reminded her of home. It was a traditional celebratory treat; she’d had it with the other Grisha whenever they’ve passed training regimes. But still, she senses that there’s something Matthias isn’t telling her because it couldn’t be a coincidence that he’s brought a Ravkan treat to her the night she was thinking of going back home.

The skepticism must’ve shown on her fact because he sighs and sits down on the edge of her bed so that they’re more or less at eye level. 

“I haven’t been completely honest with you, Nina,” he starts, but quickly backtracks at her expression. “No! It’s not anything like that—it’s just…” Matthias trails off, eyes flickering skyward as if he’s asking Djel for guidance. “I’ve been remembering a lot more ever since you started telling me things. I had vague memories of certain events, at first. But then you’d say something and it was like a revelation—it was like I’ve never forgotten anything in the first place.”

Her mouth is suddenly dry; she has the urge to uncork the brandy and take a long swig. “So you remember everything now?” 

“I remember feelings more than individual events,” he admits. “Like I remember the feeling of dying rather than the act itself. I remember the ice of a storm and the howls of wolves, trying to call me home. It was cold and then it wasn’t.”

And here it was: the moment of truth. The reason why they were even in this mess in the first place. She’d held it off for as long as she could, but she supposes that this was as good as any night.

“I bargained for you,” she says. Nina reaches out and grabs both of his hands, afraid that if she lets go he will slip away again. “You weren’t supposed to come back. But I couldn’t let you go. The way you are now, it’s because of me. Because I was selfish. I stole you from your wolves, from Djel, from home. You should hate me.”

Matthias is quiet, ice blue eyes studying her. This time, she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t leave the room. 

“You’ve never lied to me.” His voice is steady and sure.

Nina blinks, unsure of where this conversation was going. “I’m not a liar.” 

“You told me the truth about us, both the good and the bad.” His gaze is searching. For what, she didn’t know. “From the beginning to the very end.”

“You’ve spent your life being told what to believe in,” she replies. “You don’t realize, do you? That I keep choosing for you. But this time, I couldn't do that to you. I needed you to make your own choices.”

“The ice does not forgive,” he says in Fjerdan. He swallows and she follows the movement of his throat. “But I do, Nina.”

He looks at her, _really_ looks at her, like it’s the first time. It’s a look that cuts through all the noise in her head. “Maybe one day I’ll be whole again and there won’t be any more gaps in my memory. But for now, I choose you, Nina. And I will continue to choose you. Every time.”

Matthias laces his fingers through hers, palm to palm. There are calluses that she’d forgotten were there, small scabs around his knuckles. _The body remembers_. And maybe her mind is just catching up because her fingers trace every part like she’s never forgotten. 

They don’t say anything. Perhaps they don’t need to when he pulls her out of her chair and into his arms. She grabs a fistful of his shirt when he leans in and she meets him halfway. Perhaps they’re too overzealous when their teeth clash together but it doesn’t matter because he’s finally kissing her like he means it. 

They break apart and he’s smiling at her; that soft, achingly familiar smile that he reserves for her when he thinks she’s not looking and when she’s pretending to not look at him.

“Not gonna say anything about me not being proper?” She can’t help the tease and he flushes a glorious shade of pink. 

“You’re anything but proper.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and she thinks that they’ll get along just fine.

“Good,” she says instead. “I’m glad you’re finally catching on.”

She buries her face in his chest and wraps her arms around him, tight. She can feel his heartbeat against her cheek. Nina breathes in and it is all him; pine and the wild of a winter night. 

“Matthias,” she says. Her voice is muffled in his shirt. “I want you.”

His voice is a questioning rumble. “But you have me.”

Nina doesn’t bother to fight the smile that tugs at her mouth. She kisses the hollow of his collarbone before answering. “No, you oaf. Not like that.”

She doesn’t bother explaining anything more when she hooks one leg around his waist and forcibly shoves him backward and onto her bed. His mouth is frozen in an ‘o’ of surprise and she has plenty of time to savor it as she crawls across his legs and straddles his waist. Nina is well aware that her robe has ridden up her thighs, and even more aware of the heat in Matthias’ gaze as he traces the bare expanse of her legs.

She leans down again and captures his mouth with hers again. Nina lets out a small, breathy sound as his hands slip under her robe and land on the small of her back. Heat pools in her belly as he trails his fingers down to her ass and squeeze. She unconsciously grinds down and is rewarded with a low groan. Her hands trail down from his shoulders down to his waist, right above where his shirt is tucked in his pants.

Nina pulls away and they are both breathing hard. She is close enough to see the dark of his pupils, blown so wide that there is only a small ring of ice blue around them. Her hands tug at his shirt, freeing it from his pants. She helps him tug it over his head and her hands are on him again, tracing the scars that line the broad expanse of his chest. Her fingertips brush lightly over the ragged, star-shaped scar of that fatal bullet wound. Nina pushes the memory to the back of her mind for now as she reaches for the tie of her robe.

When she’s bare, his hands travel up her sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He kisses a trail up between her ribs and into the valley of her breasts. He takes a nipple into his mouth and sucks until she is a writhing mess. Matthias flips her over to undo his pants, shedding the last of his clothes. Now it is his turn to crawl over to her, legs bracketing hers; she can feel the hard length of him resting between her thighs. 

“Please,” she breathes when he looks down at her, one final question in his eyes. Nina pulls him down to her just as he slides in. She moans into his mouth when he begins to move, hands fisting into his hair. His hands squeeze her hips and he rocks into her. She shifts her hips up to match his pace and she can think of nothing else in this moment besides the heat of his skin against hers and the way he breathes her name like a prayer in her ear. He fills her over and over again until there is none of the guilt that plagues her, none of the emptiness that lingers in that dark place in her heart. He kisses her like there is nothing else, there will never be anything else.

And after, when they come down from both of their highs, he tells her that she is his home. He holds her until she believes it. 

**xii.**

It takes some time to slide off Matthias’ arm; he mumbles a protest when she makes a move to get off the bed. She walks across the room and scoops up the bowl of raisins and brandy before heading back to bed.

“This is a fire hazard,” Matthias says as she sets the bowl down on her nightstand. She uncorks the brandy and pours just enough to cover the raisins. 

“Only if you drop them,” she replies as she strikes a match. “So I guess you just have to not let them fall or else Wylan will be very displeased.”

He watches her for a beat as she demonstrates how to grab them. The fire burns blue as the raisins seem to bob in the bowl, alight with flame. In some twist of fate, he manages to grab more raisins than her; he doesn’t drop a single one. Matthias smirks at her when she crosses her arms in defeat. Still, she doesn’t protest when he sets the bowl down and reaches for her, pulling her back into his arms. 

Nina sighs and presses a kiss to his mouth. 

“Let’s go find people worth saving,” she says. “I’ll wear all the wool caps and knitted vests that you want.”

Maybe the nights will be cold and future uncertain—she doesn't care. Here, in this moment, they can make their own light: tiny sparks of fire against the dark, brighter than all the ones in the sky. 

**xiii**.

Nina dreams. 

She dreams that there is a ship waiting for her at the very edge of Fifth Harbor. It is a magnificent vision in white and bronze against the blue and pink of dawn. There are no emblems on the sails, nor a name written in what should be looping gold script on the hull. Still, there is something that calls her to it; something unbridled and wild, waiting to be willed into creation. Nina walks toward it, steps slow but sure. 

The rest of Ketterdam fades out around her periphery as she makes her way down the dock. She sees it now; what she’s always meant to do, who she’s always meant to be when she goes home. Nina doesn’t stop walking until she’s right in front of the ship, feet right at the edge of the ramp. At the edge of what-ifs and what could be, a wish at the cusp of reality.

She closes her eyes and breathes in deep. Stills her mind and breathes in salt spray and sea brine. Nina can feel the sun on her eyelids, lighting everything up from the inside. What was once dark and hazy begins to reform into something clear and sharp, edged in gold. 

When she opens her eyes again, Matthias is peering down at her, blue eyes twinkling and reflecting the sky. Nina wants to remember this moment forever, the image of him superimposed against the ship and open sea. It stirs a feeling long forgotten in her, one that she’s only recently begun to feel again. 

He leans down and extends his hand out to her.

His smile is a bright and beautiful thing when she takes it.

**i**.

In the beginning, Nina feels the wave before she sees it. She had been trying to help free the rest of the Grisha out of the cages when the ship jolted sideways and did not right itself back up. She loses her footing just as the door at the end of the hall splinters open and saltwater floods the room. The next few minutes could only be described as utter chaos when everyone seems to move at once, nearly stepping over each other as they try to flee. The water is almost up to her waist when she manages to half-swim, half-drag herself through the dark.

She thanks the Saints when she manages to make her way up to the deck. However, she’d probably thanked them too early because in the next moment, a towering wave slams across the ship and throws her overboard. Her survival instincts kick in and she blows out a bit of air, feeling the direction they float up in. Nina kicks her legs and propels herself back up to the surface where she has front row seats to watch the ship begin sinking.

Nina tries to shove down her rising panic. _You traded one death for another_ , she thinks as she fights to keep her head above the water. Then, _No._ Determination sparks in her veins. _This will not be my grave_. 

She begins to swim, directionless and in the dark, until she brushes up against something heavy and solid which she could only hope was a piece of the shipwreck. Her guess is proven incorrect when she brushes against skin and her fingers twitch in response.

Lightning cracks the sky and for a brief moment, Nina gets a good look at his features. It is the boy that looked to be around her age, the one that gave her the tin cup of water. The one that gave a small mercy even when there was none to give. He looks like a wet dog—or wolf, she supposes—in her arms, golden strands of hair plastered all over his face. She feels his pulse—faint, but steady—underneath her fingertips, and Nina reflexively flexes her hand against his pulse, willing it to beat harder. It works, because half a second later he is sputtering and coughing out seawater. 

“Wake up, you miserable lump of muscle,” she says in Fjerdan. If he manages to hear her over the roar of the waves, he gives no indication. He does try to shove her away, however, when he finally comes to his senses that she is _drüsje_. She feels a small spark of satisfaction when he reaches back for her because he realizes that maybe they do have to work together if they want any chance of surviving the night. 

Nina thinks that it could be worse. She could’ve ended up with Jarl Brum—the thought of this nearly makes her stop swimming—or any other _drüskelle_ that would rather strangle her in the water rather than help her. She keeps them both afloat, braving the storm and the sea. Her breath comes out in short pants and soon, they lapse into banter and mild taunts as they swim together as one. 

Nina does not feel the cold against her skin, only his warmth and heartbeat, strong and steady. 

The rain must be making her delirious because somewhere in between their half-hearted jabs and insults does she find herself entertaining thoughts she had no business having. Thoughts like how in another life, they could’ve been friends. How in another lifetime, she could tell him all about the times she’d snuck out of the Little Palace to her favorite candy shop in Os Alta, about the lonely nights when she’d wished for a friend, and maybe even about the cat she’d left behind. In some rational part of her mind, Nina knows that she’s being silly. There would be no lifetimes nor universes where a _drüsje_ and _drüskelle_ could ever be something other than enemies, but Nina finds herself dreaming anyways. The hopeful part of her wants to believe in something better, that they could be better than the roles fate had forced them into.

She hopes that, when the dawn comes and they reach land, they could toe the line between friends and adversaries. But here, in the middle of the night and in the middle of unforgiving waters, they are just a boy and a girl against the world.

Two halves of a shipwreck, lost at sea. 

She wants to bring them both back to shore. 


End file.
